The Home Office is to launch a pioneering scheme on Thursday to alert sex workers about people with a history of violence, including rape.

The scheme, which is being launched in Manchester, will encourage sex workers to co-ordinate with police on a national scale. It also has the wider intent of taking murderers, rapists and other violent criminals off the streets.

It will enable intelligence about people with a history of violence to be fed into a national intelligence database. Sex workers will be alerted by text, email or phone app about people who have carried out attacks.

Online escort agencies, street sex workers and those working in brothels will all be able to access the warnings.

The National Ugly Mugs pilot scheme is based on an Australian system in which sex workers alerted each other to violent customers. Similar schemes have been operating informally in areas of the UK but this is the first time that information will be collated nationally.

Some violent offenders move from one area to another to commit offences and it is hoped that the improved intelligence sharing will prevent serial attackers from committing repeated offences. The Association of Chief Police Officers is backing the scheme.

If sex workers do not want to report crimes directly to the police, they can go through local sex work projects, which can pass intelligence to the police anonymously. The scheme will be managed by the UK Network of Sex Work Projects, an umbrella organisation of campaigners and academics.

One Manchester-based street sex worker, Naomi, welcomed the initiative: "I have been working on the streets for 17 years" she said. "I have experienced lots of attacks, rapes and attempted kidnap. It's good to know that someone cares about what happens to us, and that sex workers will be better protected."

Alex Bryce, co-ordinator of the pilot scheme, said: "This is a groundbreaking initiative and will build on all the fantastic work of local schemes in improving the safety of sex workers. I believe that this scheme can and will save lives."

Lynne Featherstone, the minister for equalities and criminal information, said: "This scheme encourages sex workers to report violent incidents so that others can be safeguarded in the future and more perpetrators can be dealt with."

Merseyside police have pioneered projects working with sex workers to share intelligence about violent attacks and have an above average rate of convictions for rapes carried out against sex workers and others.

Detective Superintendent Tim Keelan from the force's public protection unit said: "What is unique in Merseyside is that we have a rape investigation team where dedicated detectives work with specially trained officers who link in with rape victims within an hour of an offence being reported."

The Metropolitan police said there were 1,036 arrests for prostitution-related offences in the London area 2010-11 but this number fell to 485 arrests in 2011-12. It has a special team focusing on vice-related crime in the five Olympic host boroughs.